


sticky fingers

by archons



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Backstory, Banter, Conversations, Early in Canon, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 10:25:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5202368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archons/pseuds/archons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles Paxton takes to the Wasteland like a fish takes to water. It's everything he never had before the war. Paladin Danse finds himself surprised at how well he's adjusting. After a short trek through the Commonwealth, they head back to the Red Rocket truck stop to go over the day's haul... and talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sticky fingers

Never before in Miles Paxton’s life had he ever been required to steal something. Even as a child, he didn’t dare to enact the five finger discount. Not once, not even on crayons or a pack of gum. Under the ever-watchful eye of his mother, he never got the chance.  
  
What might have been his rebellious stage fizzled out with his depression, and whatever holotapes or cigarettes he  _might_ have stolen remained as they were, ready for a riskier hand to stuff them into the pocket of a leather jacket or a clutch.  
  
In his early twenties, he had more than a few chances to twist a bobby pin in a lock or cop a feel behind the Department of Journalism, but moments he might have stolen were stolen from him. There was studying, and there was sleep. Nothing else existed to him, just his schooling and every missed opportunity, each more hurtful than the last.  


Stealing a glance at the off-duty soldiers would have been easy, but Miles kept his eyes ahead, tilted down along with his chin to avoid making contact with the faces and bodies around him unless. He looked up when he was behind his camera; the lens was safer than anything else.   
  
Married men don’t cause trouble. That was the nugget of knowledge his father shared with him while they stood in front of a shared mirror in the chapel’s bathroom, twisting and tugging and tightening their bowties. So Miles didn’t cause trouble. He didn’t cheat, but beyond that, he didn’t take from Nora. He only ever gave her what little he had left by twenty-nine.  
  
He led a boring life for a television personality. While keeping his nose clean and hands empty, he quickly began amassing a stash of lies that filled him up from the toes of his polished shoes to the brim of his newsboy hat. They made him whole, made him worth something to everyone else. It was all he could do to keep his life together, but even that couldn’t last.  
  
Every rule he ever knew, every regulation he ever adhered to, every law he ever obeyed--they were all gone in an instant, vaporized with the nuclear bomb that hit Boston.  
  
And now he was standing in the garage of the local Red Rocket truck stop, tipping a canvas bag over and spilling its contents out onto a long table. Tin crashed against aluminum. Plastic smacked into steel. Wooden planks fanned out over a bundle of faded fabric. A baby bottle rolled off of the table only to be caught by Paladin Danse, who lifted it up and inspected the object with a furrowed brow.  
  
“No matter how many times I insist your foraging takes up too much of our time... “ He flicked the rubber nipple at the end. The latex was still strong enough to bounce back. Setting the bottle back down, Danse gestured towards the pile of what seemed to be junk before them both. “How do you manage this?”  
  
“I take everything,” Miles replied simply. Tugging a bottle of wonderglue from beneath the scorched cover of a book, he twisted off the blue cap and shut an eye to peer down into the contents. “We need  _everything_.”  
  
It was Danse’s chuckle that stole Miles’s attention from the glue he held in his hands.   
  
_Imagine having a laugh charming enough to distract somebody in my position from adhesive. Imagine being so disarming. It’s unfair._  
  
“You take your role as general of the Minutemen seriously.” Danse reached out and took the wonderglue from Miles’s hands, moving over to the stack of containers on the other side of the room. Each held one vital component or another--planks of wood, bars of steel or silver, fuses or circuitry ripped from phones or hot plates. He nestled the bottle of glue in an organized mess of the same. “I wouldn’t expect a man from the pre-war times to understand survival like the rest of us.”  
  
Miles pressed his lips together and began quietly sifting through the upturned contents of his bag. After a few long minutes of silence, they were organized by type and size, and Miles still hadn’t responded to Danse’s comment.  
  
Part of him expected Danse to repeat himself, but another, louder part knew Danse was too aware of boundaries to push when pushing was unwanted.  
  
“It was still surviving,” Miles said, finally, palms pressed to the empty spots on the table. With his eyes glued to the grain of the wood, his back curved into a slouch. “Different times, sure, but we still had to survive.”  
  
“No doubt.”   
  
The air shifted as Danse got closer.   
  
He was used to clocking Danse’s movements by the groan and clang of his power armor, but out of it, he was lighter on his feet than Miles expected. Light and  _fast_ , though he supposed he had to be to carry all of that around all of the time.   
  
“I just meant that you’re acclimating quickly.”   
__  
Good save, Miles thought, eyes shifting from the table to Danse’s face.  
  
“You weren’t raised in the Wasteland, Knight.” At Miles’s narrowed eyes, Danse laughed and rubbed a broad hand over the back of his neck. “ _Paxton_.”  
  
Turning around and resting against the table, Miles folded his arms over his chest. “No, I wasn’t, but I’m a quick learner. I’ve had to adapt to less-than-ideal situations my entire life. The Wasteland might have been kinder to me.  _You_ would have flourished back then.”  
  
A slow smile spread across Danse’s face, widening his honest mouth and putting a light into his eyes. “And why is that?”  
  
“You work hard,” Miles began, fingers of one hand tapping against his bicep. “You would have been army, ranked high at an early age. You’d have a wife who loves you and a few brats who worship you. There would be white picket fences and  _everything_.”  
  
Danse’s brows rose. “I’ve seen your old home in Sanctuary Hills. The fences weren’t in the best shape, but they were there.”  
  
_Not fences,_ Miles wanted to tell him.  _Bars. Metal ones, from the soil to the sky._  
  
“I was never suited for a life like that.” It was the easiest answer, and the one that wouldn’t sprout more questions. “This... is easier for me. Killing started out hard and got easier. Stealing is even easier than that. I really don’t know why this comes so naturally to me. Maybe this was what I always wanted. I had a perfect life, and I wanted  _this_.”  
  
“This world is harsh, don’t get me wrong.” Danse’s smile softened to a faint curl at the corner of his lips. “But it isn’t too difficult to carve out a decent life. And stealing is oftentimes necessary... even  _rewarding_  when you support the right cause.”  
  
A warmth spread through Miles’s stomach, curling up from his guts into the thick of his chest, and he pressed his lips together to keep from smiling himself.  
  
“It’s admirable that you’ve found a place here, in this different time.”  
  
“Stop,” Miles pleaded suddenly, removing his newsboy cap and running his fingers through his hair. “Stop, please,  _mercy_.”  
  
Danse’s questioning look goaded a laugh out of him; the noise was small and hoarse in his throat.  
  
“I get a thrill out of stealing. Adrenaline helps me not feel like shit all of the time. There’s nothing admirable about either of those things.” He smiled then, a sharp thing that cut a dimple into his cheek. “But I’m glad we don’t agree on that.”  
  
“We don’t.”  
  
Miles pushed away from the table and crossed the garage to the piles of crates, lifting one up into his arms to bring over to the pile of new goods. “Yeah,” he murmured, stacking a few old comic books on top of the others. “I know.”  
  
“But like I said,” Danse continued. He followed suit, though the crate he carried was three times as heavy. “The humans of the Wasteland are all different. We grew up knowing different things, and we continued down them as we aged. You deserve the chance to find your place here, even if you do have sticky fingers.”  
  
“The stickiest.” Miles thumbed over his index finger. Residue from the wonderglue turned his skin tacky, and it pulled just barely at contact. “Literally.”  
  
Danse didn’t reply with his usual restrained chuckle, charming as it was. That time, his laugh took him by surprise, and he snorted, nose wrinkling. He quiet string of curses that followed only made him laugh harder. 


End file.
